According to the grandiose John Lee Hooker, the Irishman Van Morrison is the largest white blues singer. And after a 50-year career, the singer now released an album with a difference. Together with many artists he has taken his various titles of his previous creative period and this included re-arranged as a duet with them. The result is a varied album, with a lot of charisma and nostalgic timelessness. The voice of Van Morrison harmonizes very well with its partners such as George Benson, Joss Stone, Natalie Cole, Mick Hucknall or Michael Bublé or Mark Knopfler. On perhaps the most interesting is the opening track of the album, "Some Peace Of Mind". The piece was originally written by Van Morrison's album "Hymns to the Silence" in 1991. For "Duets: Re-Working the Catalogue" he wrote the song recorded late 2014 once again along with the now sadly deceased Bobby Womack. This posthumous publication of the last musical work of Bobby Womack gives the new Van Morrison album at the beginning a very special and personal atmosphere. And this particular mood then is retained in its various facets over the entire duration of the album. The 16 new recordings and arrangements bring songs from nearly 40 years together on an album and not emphasize only through the support of many current singing partner timelessness that still inherent in the music of Van Morrison. A very nice album that you can listen to again and again.
